SAN ONOFRE, Calif. – Officials at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station confirmed Friday that a worker fell into a reactor pool last week, but said he was uninjured.
According to Southern California Edison, the incident happened in a reactor that was shut down two months ago for maintenance. Under normal working conditions, the pool is full of radioactive material.
The employee returned to work later the same day.
It’s the latest in a string of incidents at San Onofre. Tuesday, a small radiation leak was detected in the still operational reactor. The next day, federal regulators said minor amounts of radiation got into the air, but not enough to be harmful.
Those same regulators also found significant corrosion on tubes that move water around parts of the plant, even though they were only installed 22 months ago.
Because of these incidents, San Onofre is offline and not generating power.
Critics of the facility said Friday safety is being sacrificed.
“We want it to be shut down,” said Gary Headrick with San Clemente Green, “We’re going to do everything we can in our power to keep it shut down.”
Headrick said he has a long list of whistleblowers within the plant that feed him reasons to be concerned.
“They believe the plant is in danger,” he said.
He pointed to prior incidents of safety employees falsifying reports, a steel beam that fell into another pool on the site and other areas of concern.
“Now, they’ve had a person drop into the pool. They say, ‘no problem,’” Headrick commented.
Gil Alexander with Southern California Edison denied Headrick’s criticisms.
